


And the Stance of the Sea and the Absence of Green

by Cinderscream



Series: kat does sledgefu week 2020 [2]
Category: The Pacific (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pirate, Burgie is tired tm but what's new, Hijinks & Shenanigans, M/M, Sledge is trying his best, Snafu is a terrible little bastard, also there are mermaids, by which i mean local pirate rivals Snafu and Sledge fall in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:53:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25550851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cinderscream/pseuds/Cinderscream
Summary: Several encounters of rival captains Sledge and Snafu and the ridiculousness that ensues.
Relationships: Merriell "Snafu" Shelton & Eugene Sledge, Merriell "Snafu" Shelton & R. V. Burgin, Merriell "Snafu" Shelton/Eugene Sledge
Series: kat does sledgefu week 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1860643
Comments: 14
Kudos: 18
Collections: Sledgefu Week 2020





	And the Stance of the Sea and the Absence of Green

**Author's Note:**

> writing this physcially killed me lmao I don't know shit about pirates

Eugene stares at his prisoner. 

His prisoner stares back. 

Internally, he curses when he’s the first one to blink, unable to hold those cold blue eyes, too much like trying to hold the gaze of a particularly deep part of the sea, the waves unyielding of their secrets and absent of any mercy for whatever man falls into them. 

(In hindsight, thinking of Merriell Shelton as anything less than in control, even bound and weaponless, is a mistake on Eugene’s part because Merriell has never been helpless in his life. Probably. He’s slippery as an eel with the quick sleekness of a cat and Eugene hates him so fucking much.) 

“You need something from me, or did you just pick me up for a nice chat”, drawls Merriell, seemingly uncaring of his vulnerable state, hands bound behind him, weapons taken from him and completely at the mercy of the cutlass Eugene holds to his throat, the tip of it grazing at the fragile skin. It makes Eugene  _ angry  _ that he inspires no fear in this man, hardly a year older than him, when he had spent so long cultivating his reputation as a fearsome pirate, killing and stealing and ransoming from the rich and greedy society that he had once belonged to, had felt trapped by-

Just for this upstart to appear out of nowhere and make a fool of him! He's not sure when he’d first heard of him, but he remembers their first meeting vividly, when the man had hopped onto his ship from seemingly out of nowhere, stole the gold from his hands and had fled off by jumping from the side of his ship without even bothering with the rest of the spoils. He’d mocked Eugene for being so easily swindled, laughing like an imp and leaving Eugene and his crew utterly bewildered for a good five minutes afterwards. His transgressions were petty and his target always seemed to be Eugene rather than any of his crewmates (though rarely, Sid found himself a target), ranging anywhere from leaving him strange “gifts” (shiny seashells and odd rocks) to robbing him blind when he happened to find himself portside. 

Eugene doesn’t even know how Merriell ever finds him, the bastard just appears from the pits of the sea to be a nuisance. He frowns, and Merriel grins, beatific and obnoxious. 

“What, cat gotcha tongue? C’mon Red, I ain’t got all day”, he says, crowing out his arrogance and faux boredom and not even flinching when Eugene’s hand shakes with the spike of his temper and the sword scrapes a thin line of blood across his throat. 

“I’m holding you for ransom. If your first mate can’t get me the gold I want, I’ll kill you”, Eugene says, his voice low and threatening. He injects as much fury into his tone as possible, but he can’t quite muster the same timbre of livid, red anger that Merriell shows to other pirates- which is odd, because Eugene knows he can be intimidating when he wants to. He just can’t seem to be intimidating to Merriell. 

Merriell remains unfazed, as if privy to the knowledge that Eugene isn’t actually going to kill him, his grin going lazy and smug. (And in his defense… Eugene’s never actually tried). Eugene glowers, wishing he knew what the hell would intimidate the bastard. He thinks maybe it would be easier to be truly intimidating if Merriell didn’t make him so tongue-tied and stupid just by being so stupidly pretty. 

“You actually gonna do something with that or…?” Merriell nods towards the sword, leaning close to it and laughing when Eugene snatches it away before it can properly impale him. 

Eugene sighs, sheaths it, and sighs again, a deep, heaving breath. 

“You’re a menace”, he says, much to Merriell’s amusement. His anger’s fizzled into resignation, and he finds himself sitting next to Merriell and bumping shoulders with him, wishing that antagonism would come easier rather than this strange back and forth, where they’re enemies and friends and then enemies again. Merriell responds with a quiet hum, shifting himself slightly into a more comfortable position, fluffy, dark brown curls bouncing slightly with the movement. 

Scooping Merriell up had been a bit impulsive, he’ll admit. He’d seen him in a bar in the port village they’d stopped at to pick up supplies and he’d wanted so badly to pull one over Merriell for once that he’d waited until he was properly, immensely drunk and had struck when he’d stumbled outside, leaving behind his heavy green coat with a message for Romus Burgin that if he wanted his captain back, he’d have to give up half of their gold. He’d felt so clever at that time, triumphant to have caught Merriell unawares for once, but it feels a little hollow now, with Merriell clearly unable to feel fear and Sledge unable to really do anything to convince him to. 

“Aw, don’t look so down Cap’n Sledge, you managed to capture me, good jood! Bravo! One day you could even be a real pirate”, Merriel says, something about his drawling accent making him sound even more patronizing. 

“You could at least  _ pretend _ to act afraid”, Eugene grumbles, his scowl only serving to make Merriell look more smug. “And stop being so incorrigble, it’s fuckin’ annoying.”

Merriell raises his eyebrows at him as if taking that as an invitation to be  _ more _ annoying and Eugene groans rolling his eyes and giving in to the childish urge to cross his arms over his chest, frustration over this failed venture sharpening into bitterness. 

“Burgie’s not payin’ any ransom, by the way”, says Merriell, which is just about the only warning he gets before Merriell hops up, shows the tiny dagger in his unbound hands that Sid had somehow missed when he’d been checking him for weapons, and begins running off towards the deck. 

Eugene shouts at his men to catch him, but they’re not quick enough to stop him from jumping overboard, lost to the turbulent waves. 

…

“Fancy meetin’ you here, huh?” says Merriell, with a grin that Eugene doesn’t need to see to know that it’s there, spread cheerfully across his freckled cheeks. 

Eugene dodges a chair that sails over his head, snatches Merriell’s wrist and drags him behind the safety of a turned over table. So close, even with the chaos around them, he can smell the saltwater on Merriell’s skin, a bronzed collarbone peeking from the open collar of his loose white shirt and Eugene forces himself to  _ focus _ , glancing longingly at the cutlass that he’d dropped at the other end of the bar before the whole fight had begun. It wasn’t even his fault. Hell, it wasn’t even  _ Merriell’s _ fault and the man usually thrived on the discontent of other pirates and sailors. (He thrives on chaos in general, but he seems to especially revel in the misery of those who claim the sea as their home, which Eugene doesn’t understand since Merriell himself is a pirate. Eugene would think him some sort of trickster god if he hadn’t seen him bleed so many times before.)

That night, they’d happened to stumble into each other and in the name of a truce, had settled into a private little game of dice in the corner where they had spent a few hours gambling away little trinkets in their pockets or the rows of bracelets on their wrists. And the fight had begun without their say, Eugene doesn’t know how, he hadn’t seen, too busy grumbling over losing a shiny rock. 

“Shut up so we can sneak outta here, this ain’t our fight”, Eugene snaps, peaking over the table to observe as men much larger and drunker than he or Merriell brawl, the heavy slap of large knuckles slamming into flesh just audible beneath all the screaming and yelling. 

“Well that ain’t no fun”, says Merriell with a pout, but he follows Eugene’s lead, the both of them using their smaller size to sneak around the larger men blinded by their bloodthirst. 

Eugene sticks close to the wall, eyes on getting his cutlass first before they make their escape and Merriel knocks away any of the stragglers that attempt to chase after them, expertly dispatching them and receiving, at most, a tiny, sluggishly bleeding cut to his cheek. It’s while he’s busy with someone else that Eugene is caught off guard, one of the drunker men pushed into his path and zeroing in on him like a bull at the sight of a matador, rosy nose flaring, his bloodshot eyes dull and angry. Eugene hisses as the man swings a meaty fist at him, smashing it into the wall where his head had been. Merriel’s behind him, trying to push back his own opponent with little more than a dagger and his hands, which is less than Eugene has as he ducks away from another clumsy punch, trying to gauge how much further his cutlass is. 

In a moment of distraction, he slips, and the drunken sailor clamps his hand around Eugene’s wrist, the grip so crushing he’s almost certain that he’s trying to break it. His other hand draws back, and Eugene’s eyes widen with panic when he catches the glint of a knife in his fist, ready to be plunged into his soft belly. 

It doesn’t make it, interrupted by Merriell hopping in to rake his own dagger into the man’s arm, forcing him to let go of Eugene. His heart hammers against his chest as Merriell takes his hand, scrambles to pick up the cutlass and runs them both out of the bar, his thin chest heaving heavily under his unbuttoned blue waistcoat, wiping sweat off his forehead with one of his sleeves. He looks darker, silhouetted by the pale light of the moon, but his eyes reflect it, washing them into a silvery gray, and for a moment, Eugene finds it hard to breathe, the air snatched from his lungs like a crow swooping a coin from the earth, something about Merriell’s white-toothed smile turning his brain to mush. 

“Well that was fun”, Merriell says, handing Eugene’s cutlass back, “we should do it again sometime, only just you and me and we don't  _ really _ try to kill each other.”

He adds a wink at the end of his sentence, tongue poking out of his mouth. Despite himself, Eugene is charmed by it.

He snorts, “sure, Mer", and they go to finish their game at the docks, Eugene hoping to win one of his bracelets back.

…

Eugene ran away when he was seventeen, a month before he'd be eighteen, with the single goal of becoming… anything other than who he was supposed to be- who his parents told him he's supposed to be. He hadn't sought out to be a pirate originally (that didn't come until he was nineteen and had spent a good year on the crew of a fisherman and had met his first pirate, Captain Ack Ack and had subsequently traded in fish guts for a cutlass).

It's not that his home life was bad, he knows he'd been lucky in regards to his parents, his father a compassionate doctor, his mother kind if a bit concerned with her image. Eugene had even loved his brother, as annoying as he was (he'd been a good older brother, all things considered). But it had been so painfully stifling, every day a suffocating practice of propriety where his every action would be scrutinized by their neighbors and the expectations for him were as narrow as they were painfully high. Eugene wouldn't give up what he has now, but he knows that that old version of himself had been a little too naive to have left when he did, and he's surprised that he'd survived for as long as he had. 

Often, he finds himself wondering if Merriell had been like him. Wonders if he'd been a bit from an affluent family who'd suffocated under the eyes of his community, or if he'd been born poor and had gone into piracy to survive. Oddly. Eugene had never heard of Merriell Shelton before he'd popped up on his ship- not from other pirates, who seemed as perplexed by his existence and Eugene, and certainly not  _ before _ his life on the sea, and every time Eugene had tried to ask about who he used to be, Merriell would deflect or simply say that he'd been born in the seafoam (and from the color of his eyes, Eugene had been inclined to believe him). Eugene knows even less about Merriell's second in command, Romus Burgin, who appears rarely and always to save Merriell's ass when he bites off more than he can chew, and… to be honest, Eugene's never seen Merriell's ship. 

It's something that plagues his thoughts, and for a good while he'd thought that Merriell was little more than a hallucination, the sea finally turning him mad. Sid had had to reassure him that yes, Merriell exists and yes he's as annoying as Eugene had thought him to be. His journal is full of his meandering frustrations about him, and as Eugene stares at the page, full of his quick, looping script, he wonders when Merriell had invaded nearly aspect of his life, fighting against each other to fighting together to thinking about him to writing about him- and in a rather fond light too. 

Eugene sighs, puts his quill down, and buries his face in his hands.

…

He doesn’t know how they both managed to get captured and he’s not feeling very hopeful for their escape. 

Merriell’s unconscious, which is just great, his head leaning against Eugene’s shoulder, blood dripping from his untreated head wound and onto Eugene’s white shirt. Both of them are bound, wrists and ankles, their weapons stripped away from them, somewhere in the middle of the sea and not quite sure of where their destination might be, neither of their crews having any idea where the fuck they are. It’s nerve wracking, to see Merriell so damn still, too. It’s not right, it doesn’t seem natural when Merriell is always so full of energy, frozen only when in the stance of a viper waiting for his chance to strike. His stillness now is a forced one, accompanied by a faint pallor to his cheeks, and the only thing that keeps Eugene calm is the rise and fall of his skinny chest. 

Trying to twist out of the ropes proves fruitless, and he can’t reach the dagger he’s  _ sure _ Merriell must be hiding in his boot. Frustration claws at his throat as his wrists begin to chafe from the force he puts into trying to get free, Merriell staying quiet and continuing to simply breathe, face pale enough that the bruises from the earlier fight stand out starkly against them. Eugene’s pretty sure he doesn’t look all that much better, beaten and bloody with a swollen eye that's hard to see out of, but at least he’s not unconscious. 

Eventually, he gives up on the ropes, wrists feeling awful and irritated, the skin probably close to breaking. He knows Sid knows he’s gone, he was supposed to have been back on the ship at least an hour ago, but he doesn’t know if Merriell’s crew knows he’s missing or if either crews would even know where to track them. (He still doesn't actually know if Merriell has a crew or a ship, has never seen anyone but Burgie with Merriell and always on the ports.) The man who took them is a rival of Eugene’s- a real one who isn’t so much interested in playful banter as he is having Eugene’s head on a platter. He’s not quite sure what Merriell would have done to get on this man’s- Bouchard’s- shit list, but considering the pranks he pulls on Eugene, it could well be anything. Not every pirate is as forgiving (or infatuated with Merriell) as Eugene.

Bouchard climbs down into the hold with them sometime later, when Eugene’s been reduced to trying to count the visible freckles on the corner of Merriell’s eyes and Merriell continues to sleep, the wound on his head finally having stopped its bleeding, much to Eugene's relief. 

“Merry’s still asleep? Ah, that figures, the little bastard could always sleep anywhere”, Bouchard muses, and with little warning, dumps a glass of water over Merriell’s head. 

It has the desired effect of sending Merriell into a spluttering fit, coughing and wheezing, his eyes slanted into a mint green by the faint lighting of the brig and blinking open blearily. Eugene can feel the movement as Merriell pulls at his hands only to find resistance, and the very slow realization that dawns across his face, followed by a panic he’s never seen grace his face before. 

“Oh no”, he says, looking down. 

“You’re a slippery fish to catch”, drawls Bouchard, looking at Merriell with amusement, something odd and intense in his eyes, and Eugene’s feeling fairly annoyed at being ignored before he looks back to Merriell to see what has Bouchard’s attention. 

Oh, he thinks with a start. Merriell’s legs are changing. 

As in, they’re merging together, his black trousers seeming to melt away to make way for shimmering scales, shimmering blue-green and tinted with silver, so much like his eyes, like the shift of the sea. The rope that had been around his ankles wraps around the base of the tail, just above the long, strong tail flukes. 

“There we go, that’s enough playing pirate, eh Merry?” says Bouchard with a laugh, patting Merriel’s shoulder with a familiarity Eugene wasn’t aware that anyone else would have had with him. 

Merriell gives Bouchard an acidic glare before turning more mournful eyes on his transformed tail, carefully shifting up and slipping slightly in the wet puddle around him. Eugene is struck with the realization that if he manages to escape, he might not be able to take Merriel with him, not with him unable to run, and the thought bothers him enough that he pushes it aside for the time being, for the moment more interested in what Bouchard even wanted with them. 

“Okay?” he interrupts, feeling Merriell relax when Bouchard’s eyes leave him to bore into Eugene instead. “You got us… now what? Walking the plank isn’t exactly going to do it here, and I’d thought you’d be more interesting in your retribution than just tryin’ to kill us." 

Bouchard shrugs. 

“Well, I could either keep Merry or sell him for a fortune, and  _ you _ , I could turn in to royal navy for a pretty penny. Doesn’t matter to me, I just wanted the satisfaction of having the two worst thorns in my side as my prisoners”, he answers, smug, and Eugene is caught somewhere between annoyed and alarmed, not fond of the idea of putting Merriell into the siren trade (which, honestly he’d thought wasn’t real because  _ sirens _ weren’t supposed to be real, but really, it shows what Eugene knows, which, as it turns out, is jack shit). 

“You could fuck off to hell? I suggest it every time and you never seem to listen”, says Merriell tartly, teeth bared, canines elongated and  _ sharp _ . Eugene is sure that if Bouchard got close enough, Merriell wouldn't hesitate to bite him, and to be honest, he isn't far behind on the sentiment either, though his teeth wouldn't do nearly as much damage. It would still be satisfying, at least. 

Whatever Bouchard may have responded with is drowned out by the sound of sudden fighting on the deck, and Eugene smiles smugly, recognizing the sound of his own invading crew, Sid's voice distinct above the explosion of noise. Bouchard scowls, shoots them both a venomous look, and unsheaths his cutlass, climbing back out of the hold to join the fight with his men.    
  


“So do you have a plan?” Eugene asks, even as he looks around again for something sharp to cut his binds off with, frustration crawling in the pit of his stomach when once again, he finds nothing.    
  


“Yeah”, says Merriell with a sharp grin at the same time that Burgie pops his head in, not even a fuel minute after Bouchard went out to fight, knife in hand and groaning the moment he sees Merriell, dressed from the waist up in his white shirt, emerald vest and missing his heavy, navy blue coat, and from the bottom, is nothing but fish tail. 

“Again, Snafu?” 

“Just get us out of here, Burgie.”

In quick succession (with plenty of teasing and complaints), Burgie has them both free of the ropes, and Eugene makes the executive decision to pick up the still-damp Merriell, who looks positively delighted by the situation, cackling about Eugene being his big, strong hero. Eugene hopes the head wound hasn't affected him too badly, but it's hard to tell when Merriell is this chaotic on a normal day.

The mad dash to Eugene’s ship is hindered by Eugene’s efforts to fight with a siren in his arms while Burgie tries desperately to hold off two attackers at once (though he has two swords in his hands, not hesitating to go in for the kill when anyone gets too close to Merriell.) Merriell, for his part, manages to make a weapon of his surprisingly long and heavy tail, whipping it at whoever dares to get within range, while his arms curl tightly around Eugene’s shoulders, mouth curved up in wicked snarl, and in a flash of a second, Eugene can see the sharp points of his canines, sharp enough to tear a man apart if they ever got too close. 

“Throw me overboard and get to your ship!”, says Merriell, and Eugene opens his mouth to argue before realizing that actually, throwing Merriel into the sea would be the  _ smart _ thing to do (though the wound on his head gives him some reservations) and makes his way to the side of the ship as quickly as he can, Burgie fending off men behind them. 

  
“Thanks cher, I owe you one”, Merriell hums with a grin, pressing a kiss to Eugene’s cheek (subsequently leaving his face a bright, burning red) and hopping down into the churning, turquoise waves below before Eugene can give him a chance to second guess. Burgie jumps in after him, disappearing in a flash of red scales. 

Eugene stares down at the water a moment longer, hand on his cheek, before he picks up the cutlass Burgie had dropped and throws himself back into the fray. 

…

The moon shimmers on the inky ocean waves, spilling silver across the abyss, the stars above reflecting a second sky into the sea, one that shifts and moves, that splashes its starry contents onto the pale sand of the beach. 

Merriell’s eyes are like moons themselves, large and round and silver, set in a face darkened by the night and framed by faint freckles, and Eugene wishes he had brought his journal to be able to capture the memory of him on its pages where it would be more permanent than his mind. He’s smiling, a cat-like curl of his lips that seems especially tempting now, red and warm, glossy from where his tongue had traced them. His silver-blue tail dips into the lapping tide, swirling little whirlpools with his fin tip and sitting atop his sea-salted curls is Eugene's captain hat, the side of it dipping over one of his luminous eyes. 

A lot of things have finally clicked into place in Eugene's mind (and he can't help but find humor in the thought that Merriell had interpreted piracy as a form of human courtship).

"Interesting way of asking me to pay back a favor", says Merriell, his musical voice a low hush against the quiet whistle of the wind.

Eugene shrugs, a smile curving on his mouth, his fingers making senseless patterns into the sand. It's pleasantly cool and neither of them are fully clothed, Eugene is in little more than his brown trousers, feet bare, and Merriell wears nothing but the hat he'd stolen from Eugene.

It's painfully intimate, just the two of them and the moon and Eugene is slow when he begins to move forward, one pale, calloused hand curving on the sharp edge of Merriell's jaw. Merriell's pupils dilate, eyes going dark as the circle of his pupil eats the pale iris around it, desire in the angles of his face, tongue flicking out to lick his lips again. Eugene copies him, mouth incredibly dry, want making his hands clench in the sand. 

"You're fulfilling a fantasy", Eugene admits, leaning closer to touch his forehead to Merriell's.

"Two fantasies", corrects Merriell, before closing the distance and drawing them into a proper kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope this was enjoyable uwu


End file.
